


Come Here Please

by thewordwench



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 10:47:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15906744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewordwench/pseuds/thewordwench
Summary: Just a short little fluff piece for Beauty and the Beast with a little twist...





	Come Here Please

Come here, please.  
It was such a simple and direct command, and yet the Beast said it in such a gentle way, far different from the petulant cries he had uttered in his youth or the furious roars he’d produced during the first ten years of his curse. He was older now for one and he was tired and the young woman to whom he most often directed the request, was never usually far and so there was no need to shout. Most days she would come to him without pause and quite willingly. Even more often she was already at his side.  
They spent most of their moments together: in his extensive library reading, or out in the snow that fell no matter what time of year it was, not that it mattered, the young woman and the Beast found they had quite forgotten. They ate their meals together at the Beast’s long dining table in front of the roaring fire, and at night, dozed together in his ostentatious bed.  
Indeed, most of the time she was right there next to him and if not, she seemed to sense somehow that he needed her, wanted her, and she would come and find him whenever he may be. He would greet her with a weary “hello, my dear,” and hold her small brown hand gently in his paw. They had carried on this way for quite some time, though neither of them really knew how for how long. As mentioned before, time was a funny thing to keep track of around the castle. Six months may have passed or perhaps closer to a year. It hardly mattered. There was one truth and one truth alone that determined the relationship between the girl and the Beast, which in turn determined the fate of the castle: the two were devoted to one another. That was that.  
Come here, please.  
He’d said it after she’d woken up. After three long days of waiting by her side as she lay pale and still in his bed, as his servants had bustled around him. Days before, atop the spiraling tower, as the rain poured down on them both, she had admitted to him the one thing he’d never thought he’d ever hear. I love you, she said and her smile had shone out at him through the gloom, brighter and more brilliant than any star or sunrise even his imagination might’ve been able to conjure. She loved him and she meant it and she was proud to say it. Though she’d been only a few paces away from him, this distance seemed too great, more like miles. He’d meant to rush to her and tell her how much and more he felt the same and hold her close to him even as the fur from his paws melted away to reveal former human hands and his twisting horns broke from his human skull and then…  
She had been struck. Struck by the bullet that had surely been meant for himself from the gun of the hunter who’d earlier attacked him. She crumbled before him like a garment tossed to the ground. Her rain-soaked hair fell in her face and The Beast’s voice, which was already losing its rough and growling quality, sounded very far away in his ears. He heard not the shouts of the mob as they battled his servants far below them, nor the scream of the hunter as he lost his footing and plummeted to his death. The Beast couldn’t even hear the rain as it poured down on them both. He could only see the girl, sprawled across the stone balcony, her life fading as quickly as his old one had returned. By the time he reached her, he was fully human and he realized sadly, that her skin felt just as soft as he’d imagined it would on the pads of his now human fingertips. He brushed her hair away from her face and looked into her intelligent eyes, their light already fading. He spoke her name softly and though she didn’t respond he had the feeling that he could hear her, for a little while longer at least.  
The rain stopped and soon a crowd had gathered around them. The castle was as it had once been, a gilded fortress. The enchantress stood before the solemn pair and waited. The former Beast begged her for help. The enchantress agreed but told him it would cost the ultimate sacrifice. Blood pooled from the dead girl’s chest. The Beast held her tightly. He would do anything.  
The Enchantress turned back the clock. The Beast was a beast once more and his servants trinkets and tools. But three days later the girl awoke, frail, but alive.  
“I thought I’d never see you again,” she said softly.  
The Beast could not think of what to say. Of how to express the way he felt for her and how worried he’d also been that they would never again meet. All he could utter was Come here please and soon they were embracing and he thought he might never let her go.  
*  
The Beast looked out across the mountains where his enchanted winter faded away and the summer hills of the outside world were beginning to give way to fall. He was high up on the tallest spire of his tower, looking out all around him. He was not likely to venture out into that world soon. He was well aware that he might always be a Beast, a though the thought didn’t horrify him as it once had. He had the girl and she loved him, Beast or not, and though his servants would always hold out hope that one day an end would come to their enchantment, no was worried and no one was sorry for what they had agreed to do either. The girl lived and breathed and gave them more hope than any spell ever had. The Beast closed his eyes and felt the wind of his face. He had known the strange winter that plagued the castle for many years, yet now it felt different. Less horrific and more magical somehow. And he swore if he concentrated enough that it might even be growing ever warmer than it had been before.  
The Beast opened his wide, stormy eyes once more. Warming temperatures were not so impossible but now was no longer the time to think about such things. With a hearty sniff, he descended the tower’s edge rapidly, claws scraping against the roof tiles, and landed with a thumb on his bedroom balcony. He leaned down and inspected the indentation where for many years a table had once stood on which an enchanted rose had marked the passage of time within his curse. The rose was gone, of course, it’s fallen petals having glowed and swirled around the young girl, reviving her. The table was gone now too, having been knocked over the balcony during the commotion with the mob. The markings from the table’s legs were all that remained. The Beat least down and touched it with his paw. Then he exhaled and moved along.  
The girl was in the library, high up on a lager amongst the taller shelves, looking as lovely as ever. With her long shock of dark hair swept over her shoulder and the dark hue of her skin complimented so nicely by her blue dress, she made the entire room look like the scene from a fairytale painting, so beautiful, it was as if she was meant for the space and it for her. He cleared her throat then and her bright eyes fell upon him, a soft smile playing on her lips.  
“I thought I’d find you here,” The Beast rumbled softly and she came down the ladder.  
“Where else would I be?” she responded lightly.  
“Where else? I couldn’t imagine,” he replied and held out a paw. “Come here please.”  
And she did and he held her close to him. So close, that she could hear his heartbeat through his chest and cloak. He smelled her hair and nuzzled the top of her hair with her nose. In far away corners, the servants watched. Neither the girl nor the Beast minded.  
“How about a walk?” she said after a time.  
“I would be glad to,” he replied.  
With their cloaks snug around them, they made their way outside, over the frozen bridge, and to the pond to observe the crystal beauty. The girl held her companion’s arm. From a distance they looked as ordinary as any courting couple.  
“Look there,” the girl said after a time. The Beast followed her finger to discern the crack in the pond’s ice where water seemed to freely flow.  
“It must be getting warmer out,” the Beast remarked.  
“Indeed,” said the girl. “Winter’s grip seems to be weakening.”  
“Mmm,” the Beast muttered and then, “Come here please.”  
They held onto one another and listened as the earth around them began to thaw. In a matter of days, icicles would begin to drip, the chill would begin to lift from the castle and its inhabitants would begin to feel something familiar. A feeling them assumed would be lost to them forever. Something hopeful from long before. Soon but not now. Now, was a time for the two to hold each other and be close. Close and warm.


End file.
